Learn To Play The Single Stroke Roll

The most essential drum rudiment every drummer should be practicing daily is the single stroke roll. The single stroke roll is the most widely used pattern in all percussion. It is simply accomplished by alternating your sticking left right left right etc. Although even a baby can play this; it is good to practice it so you can master it. Try playing a single stroke roll playing 16th notes at 225 Bpm, and then you will see why it is important to practice this rudiment. Do not ignore the importance of this. Work on accents, speed, and different patterns incorporating the single stroke roll to fully master it!

Like I said, the single stroke roll is alternating stick patterns, left right left right, but that kind of gets rather boring. So to spice things up for your practice you can try moving around the drum set. Make sure you are not interrupting the flow of the roll, as that tends to happen when you move around the drum set. Practice this exercise below. This is a great way to develop your movement with your arms and wrists around the drum set while playing a single stroke roll.

Make sure you are playing this rudiment with your wrists, and not your arms. It takes a lot of work to use your whole arm to hit the drum, yet I see so many drummers do this. You want to try and leave your arms down, and play with your wrists only. When you do this you can add accents in a lot easier. Try this next practice exercise adding in accents. For those who do not know, an accent is a harder stroke that stands out from the rest. They are the notes with a > on top. Try this exercise:

This next practice pattern will help you develop your triplets. This again is a single stroke roll, however instead of playing 8th notes or 16th notes, try playing 8th note triplets. Make sure you are playing this with a metronome, or you will find it hard to distinguish the triplet feel. You can also accent the quarter notes to bring out the triplet feel. Try this practice exercise below:

These rudiment practices are great to play on a practice pad or drum set. Make sure you are running through at least one of these every day to keep your endurance and speed up. When you master this concept, you will see how much you have actually improved by playing regular basic rock beats. Good luck with this, and have fun learning to play drums!